The 10th Foundation Day celebration of human rights group Hindu Samhati held on Feb 14 in Kolkata, witnessed a public Ghar Wapsi of a Muslim family. This act so agitated sections of the hard-left Bengali media that they descended at the event and started asking provocative questions & heckling the converted family, and also passed some abusive comments on Hindu Samhati activists, leading to a scuffle in which a media person Anjan Roy from Zee 24 Ghanta allegedly got injured.

Later, Hindu Samhati founder Shri Tapan Ghosh addressed the media and said that Hindu Samhati activists were provoked by the journalists. “Our people have to be mature enough to understand the designs of journalists, most of whom remain Left-minded. These journalists do not want to see a reawakening of Hindus,” he said.

He also added, “I take full responsibility and promise to make sure such incidents do not recur. But our people were provoked by ABP Ananda.“

Yet, the TMC administration and WB police showed uncommon alacrity in arresting Tapan Ghosh and 3 other HS activists – Rishikesh Roy, Tapan Shil and Preetam Pal – that same night under non-bailable IPC Sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 326 (causing grievous hurt). Tapan Ghosh is currently in judicial custody for 5 days, with the next hearing set for 22 Feb.

Hindu Samhati has released this video, consisting of footage sourced from different media channels with additional captions provided by HS, to prove their viewpoint that the clash was initiated by the journalists’ aggressive questioning of the re-converted family and instigation of HS activists.

The video clearly shows several HS activists trying to calm the matter and most importantly it shows that Tapan Ghosh was no where near the scene when the scuffle took place.

Hindu Samhati workers issued a statement which says –

“This rally video shows that Tapanda was nowhere near the media personnel … and it shows that the HS team is trying to calm down the flared tempers among the assembled Hindu youths.

The arguments began when the Leftist Press tried to aggressively heckle and misbehaved with the ex-Muslim Women (who underwent Ghar Wapasi) accusing them in foul language of the motive behind their conversion and also daring them to disclose the name of their village/district (which the Ex-Muslim women were reluctant to reveal for safety reasons).

After the event which was attended by public personalities like Gen. GD Bakshi among others, a journalist asked a group who had undertaken Ghar Vapsi to the Hindu faith from Islam and were welcomed, if there were allurements offered by Hindu Samhati. Tthe group who had undertaken Ghar Vapsi refused and refereed to the volunteers instead. But the media person was mad at the volunteer, refereed to him as uncouth and used filthy language against the women volunteers of Hindu Samhati. This caused altercations and other volunteers immediately intervened.

Tapan da was far from the place because the meeting was already over. The media person went and lodged a complain. The administration under the influence of the pro-Jihadi lobby arrested Tapan da. Hindu Samhati fears for the safety of Tapan da and other volunteers. Hindus worldwide need to immediately ask the administration to release Tapan da and ensure no harm comes to him.”

Past History of Media Instigation, Islamist Violence During Rallies in Kolkata

Hindu Samhati has been holding its Foundation Day rally for 10 years now, and this is the first time that any disturbance has been reported during the rally. On the contrary, ordinary Hindus coming for HS Foundation Day rallies last year were prevented from doing so by attacks on them by militant Muslims in at least a dozen-odd places in the districts around Kolkata.

The violence involving media in this year’s HS rally has troubling parallels with the scuffle involving controversial journalist Rajdeep Sardesai who instigated and mocked supporters of PM Modi gathered to listen to him speak at Madison Square Garden in New York in Oct 2014. Our media professionals need to do some serious introspection on why they are now in a state of constant conflict and antipathy with the common citizen.

Islamists of Jamaat etc have often taken out frenzied rallies in the heart of Kolkata many times before, and some of these gathering have witnessed major attacks on police, media and innocent bystanders as this Swarajya article lists –

Sept 2017 – Huge rally backing Rohingya Muslims and demanding their settlement in Bharat was organized in Kolkata by 18 Muslim groups, also attended by senior Congress and CPM leaders. Maulana Shabbir Ali Azad Warsi, a Shia cleric, whipped up the crowd into a frenzy and threatened a march to Delhi to ‘create new history’ in the nation, if anyone ‘dare touch’ Rohingya Muslims living in West Bengal.

August 2015 – tens of thousands of slogan-shouting Muslim hardliners laid siege to central Kolkata and brought normal life to a complete standstill, thus inconveniencing lakhs of people. The reason: police had detained three Muslim clerics from Bihar who were transporting a group of 62 children from Bihar to Maharashtra via Kolkata. The police suspected the clerics of trafficking the kids since they could not produce any documents and could not provide satisfactory answers. Within an hour of the clerics’ detention, mobs from madrassas blocked roads, attacked vehicles and even the police, who fled. Buses carrying schoolchildren and ambulances carrying critically ill patients were not allowed to move by the militant mobs demanding the immediate release of the clerics.

Nov 2014 – Kolkata was ambushed by a Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind rally, putting lakhs of commuters through six hours of agony and forcing President Pranab Mukherjee’s route to be changed. At least 11 policemen — including three IPS officers — were injured in brickbatting and 13 police vehicles damaged. Journalists were attacked for “intruding on the space meant for rallyists” — which was Red Road, the city’s VIP thoroughfare.

March 2013 – hardline Islamists brought out a huge rally that brought Kolkata to its knees. They were protesting against the crackdown on Jamaat-e-Islami radicals and Islamic terrorists in Bangladesh. Prominent Muslim clerics called for the death of Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina at the rally. But no TV channel or newspaper thought it fit to report this.

Early 2014 – Muslim hardliners vented their anger on the streets of Kolkata after a Bengali TV channel planned to air a serial based on a book written by Taslima Nasreen. The West Bangal government leaned hard on the private channel to shelve the serial.

And such violent Islamist protests in Kolkata used to occur even when CPM ruled the state. The Left, too, followed a policy of Islamist appeasement, and forced media houses to desist from reporting anything that would show Muslims in a poor light –

2007 – hardline Islamists rioted in Kolkata against the presence of Taslima Nasreen in the city. They attacked media persons, police and torched two offices of the CPI-M, which was in power at that time. Even though curfew was imposed in parts of the city and the army, which had to be called out, staged flag marches, news of violence was completely blacked out. TV channels and newspapers carried asinine reports saying Muslims only protested while staying silent on the violence they unleashed. A panicky Left Front government bundled Nasreen out of the state.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg – Kolkata has emerged as one of the hubs of Islamism in Bharat, and every conceivable Islamist cause sees massive rallies in the heart of the city. Prominent cleric Maulana Nurur Rehman Barkati, the Shahi Imam of Kolkata’s Tipu Sultan Masjid, has held rallies supporting notorious terror-monger Zakir Naik, rallies opposing Uniform Civil Code, and led funeral prayers in absentia for Osama bin Laden & Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon.

What does the Ghar Wapsi family have to say?

An exchange between the public prosecutor and the defence lawyer representing Tapan Ghosh, is a dead giveaway of the real concern which the TMC administration has regarding this episode. The ‘attempt to murder’ charge seems to be just a cover, the real concern of state Government is to take action against those who crossed the secular red line in daring to publicly conduct Ghar Wapsi in heart of Kolkata.

But while police is behaving as if there is some great conspiracy behind the conversion of the Muslim family, many media outlets have managed to talk to them at length and this is what the family, consisting of 41-year-old Hussain Ali , his wife Moyna Bibi (33) — a Hindu who had converted to Islam to marry -their five sons and two daughters and five grandchildren, had to say –

Ali, who claimed to be a resident of Silchar in Assam, said it was a conscious decision to convert and relocate after facing ostracism for marrying a Hindu. “We are scared but these people (Hindu Samhati) are helping us. They have got us a home on rent… providing us food… security. With their help, my son and I are positive of getting jobs and starting a new life with new names,” Ali said at a hotel in Barrackpore.

The family said they reached Kolkata in January with the help of Hindu Samhati members, who are looking to permanently settle them in Bengal. “I faced ostracism in Assam after I married her (Bibi). This is despite her converting to Islam. We were in love. People in my village, where everyone is a Muslim, did not like the idea,” said Ali.

Bibi said: “After our marriage, my family announced I was dead and performed my last rites. My husband’s community, too, did not accept us… Our elder boy went missing seven years ago. The younger one was beaten up and taunted every day by villagers as the ‘son of a Hindu’.” When the in-laws of their daughter came to know of Bibi’s Hindu identity, they dropped Minara Begum (28) and her children on their doorstep. “Her husband gave her talaq and dropped them at our house after 11 years of marriage,” said Ali. The family now wants the children to start going to school soon.

“We cannot return to our village. We will be killed…“

Conclusion

On the one hand, we have Islamists who take out violent rallies at the drop of a hat, and on the other we have a Hindu organization who takes out a rally once a year, with full discipline and without ever threatening law & order, but just because they help a Muslim family convert to Hindu Dharma, the left-liberal media and polity is up in arms and baying for Hindu Samhati’s blood. The same secular politicians & enfeebled police that fail to act against Jamaat-e-Islami and Raza Academy rioters, arrest a law abiding Tapan Ghosh within hours.

But the secular cabal should realize that such actions are only pushing Hindus into a corner. Tapan Ghosh and Hindu Samhati have touched a chord with the common man who is disgusted with such blatant double standards, and Hindus in Bengal and elsewhere are watching closely to see what happens next in this case.

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